Right
after the accident, I swore that I would never set foot on an AC
Transit bus, ever again ... that I would walk or take
a Friendly Cab or HITCHHIKE, forcryingoutloud, before I would
deliberately board one of those rolling diesel deathtraps again. That
lasted for about a week, until the first time I had to get somewhere on
my own steam -- in this case, back to Kaiser to get
my pain meds refilled, a cause near and dear to my heart (and my
ribcage) at the time -- and I realized
that I was going to have to suck it up and get right back on
the proverbial horse that threw me. And yes, that
first bus ride after the accident was a nail-biter, I have to
admit. Not only did I wind up riding the exact same
bus I'd had the accident on -- I
recognized the
misspelled expletive scrawled on the barrier
behind the driver's seat -- but I actually
wound up sitting in the exact same seatI
was sitting in the day I fell.

(Not by choice.
I would have preferred to sit virtually anywhere else, even in back with
the noisy obnoxious teenagers. But it was
midday, and the #51 was packed tighter than a tin of Penguins
, and it was either sit on The Evil Platform
Seat or sway precariously in the aisle for twenty
minutes. I decided to take my chances on The EPS.)
I spent that entire bus ride white-knuckling the
edge of my seat ... staring at the
metal frame across the aisle from me, thinking
That's where my chest hit the back of the
seat ... that's where my wrist hit
the railing ... that's where my MP3
player hit the floor ...

But
at least I was back on the horse, dammit.

Subsequent bus rides have gotten easier. The only exception was
the morning I snuck my digital camera on
board, trying to get a picture of The Evil
Bus Seat. That was extremely
nerve-wracking, mainly because I was trying to
be really stealthy and cool and Agent 99 about the
whole thing, and not let the driver or any of my fellow passengers know
that I was taking pictures of the inside of the bus
... but then my camera started acting up, and I got
nervous and clumsy and started sweating, and pretty soon
people sitting near me started looking at me funny, like they thought I
was plotting a terrorist attack or something.)

This morning's
ride, on the other hand, was a brief and thoroughly
benign ten-minute haul from home to the
office. The only real moment of drama was when we stopped to
pick up a wheelchair rider on Broadway, somewhere between the
Trib Tower and the Sears building. This necessitated
all sorts of interesting and complicated maneuvers on
the bus driver's part: he had to hydraulically lower
the bus to the curb, then he had to use some sort of remote
control device to unfurl the electronic ramp, then he had to help the
wheelchair-bound passenger maneuver onto the bus, then he had to strap
her in with a couple of industrial strength seatbelts. While
all of this was going on, all able-bodied passengers
were expected to get up and vacate the middle section
of the bus, in order to make room for the
wheelchair. I was OK where I was, in the middle
third of the bus, so I wasn't required to move. However, I
noticed an elderly Asian-American woman perched on the edge
of one of the Evil Platform Seats, a row or two in
front of me. It was clear from her body
language -- and from the twitchy,
expectant expression on her face -- that
she was preparing to get off the
platform seat, even though, technically, she was perfectly fine right
where she was. She looked so incredibly small and fragile,
sitting there on that huge platform seat: my heart was in my mouth as I
watched her scooching towards the edge, an overloaded Smart &
Final shopping bag clutched tightly in each hand.

Be
careful, lady! I wanted to shout at
her. That stoopid seat is an emergency
room run, just waiting to happen!

For
one long moment she sat poised on the edge of the
seat, her tiny feet dangling a good twelve inches
above the floor. It was painful to watch. I was positive that she was going to fall off the
seat and go careening across the aisle, just like I did four
weeks ago. (And if a minor misstep like that could
cause an otherwise robustly-healthy 46 year old woman to break two
ribs, god knows what sort of damage it would inflict on a
fragile senior citizen.) If the bus hadn't been
sardine-can-crowded, right at that moment -- and if all the commotion over the wheelchair passenger
hadn't been going on -- I might have leapt from my
seat and grabbed her by the elbow, just to give her an
assist.

Just as I was certain I
was about to witness
another platform seat catastrophe, the old woman
suddenly hopped from the platform seat to the ground,
like a gold-medal gymnast nailing a perfect dismount. Then
she practically tap-danced down the aisle toward the
front of the bus and leapt out the open door to the sidewalk. As
the #51 pulled away from the stop, moments later, I saw her
sprinting off into the distance, shopping bags flapping at her sides.
She wasn't even breaking a sweat.